JMM 2014

Over 6400 mathematicians descended upon Baltimore January 15-18 for the 2014 Joint Mathematics Meetings. Sessions included current research in math, discussions on pedagogy, content, collaborations across institutions, social events, and more.

The first session on Wednesday 15 January was the MAA Minority Chairs committee meeting at 7:00 am, although there were actually some short courses, workshops, AMS council meetings and MAA Board of Governors meeting on the preceding Monday and Tuesday. And there were dozens of contributed paper sessions throughout the morning and the rest of the day.

The JMM unveiled the theme of the 2014 Math Awareness Month (April 2014): Mathematics, Magic, & Mystery (http://www.mathaware.org/). On each day of April 2014 a new square of the Activity Calendar goes live, giving access to mathematical puzzles and magic. (Once opened, the resources are to be kept available for as long as the AMS exists.)

JMM2014 also included a panel session launching TPSE Math: Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics (@tpsem, http://www.tpsemath.org/). The project is sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation of New York and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

One of the sessions on the last day was The Public Face of Mathematics http://blogs.ams.org/jmm2014/2014/01/18/the-public-face-of-mathematics/.  The panel was organized by mathemagician Art Benjamin (http://www.math.hmc.edu/~benjamin/) and included "Math Guy" Keith Devlin (http://www.stanford.edu/~kdevlin/), NY Times columnist Steven Strogatz (http://www.stevenstrogatz.com/), mathbabe Cathy O'Neill (http://mathbabe.org/), freelance journalist Tom Siegfried (http://www.sciencenoise.org/), and US Congressman Jerry McNerny (http://mcnerney.house.gov/).